US: New Screen Actors Guild leadership caves in to studios

[Hannah Bell]

By Ramón Valle and David Walsh
24 April 2009

Ten months after the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) contract with the major Hollywood studios, the union’s national board approved a tentative new deal April 19 by a 53 to 47 percent vote. It will be sent to the 120,000 members in early May, with arguments for and against the contract, and the result will be known three weeks later...

The past ten months have been characterized by bitter factionalism within the guild’s leadership...The newly-formed right-wing majority on the SAG national board, from Unite for Strength, representing the most privileged sections of performers with close ties to management, has made clear its intention to facilitate the efforts of the studios to impose rollbacks on the actors.

The Membership First faction, led by SAG president Alan Rosenberg, rightfully denounces the tentative agreement as a sell-out, but over the course of the past year has been unable to advance any coherent strategy for mobilizing actors and other sections of the entertainment industry workforce against the giant corporations.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/sagc-a24.shtml

The AP adds: “Wilson argues that the agreement is dangerous because it allows producers to create Internet-only shows with non-union actors, opening the door to the union’s eventual irrelevance. The agreement also reduces residual payments—checks that actors receive on DVD sales or show reruns—for content that is offered on the Web versus on traditional platforms.

“Wilson said actors’ residual income, sometimes half their earnings, will shrink by millions of dollars because networks are cutting back on TV reruns and more and more movies and TV shows are ending up online.” In turn, if performers’ incomes are cut, there will be no contributions to their health plans, meaning that many actors will be “knocked out of health coverage,” Wilson pointed out.

[Bluenorthwest]

1. I just want to say that residual income

is vital to the working actor, and it is a labor issue. The vast majority of SAG actors need fair residiual payments just to live, and maintaining health insurance is a very difficult thing for actors today, even those who work fairly often.
So forget Brangelina, everybody. This is about hard working people, who are lucky to maintain any sort of 'middle class status', not about the handful of famous folk who get paid lavishly. Those affluent stars are atypical of the Guild membership, but many outsiders think all actors are paid that way. Most are starving artists in the grand tradition.

And thanks for posting this!